One problem that you run into with following IDers is that most of them are just ignorant and arrogant. While this makes for some good laughs, it's not very challenging. We've been trying to recruit some smarter creationist to debate here. It's not very easy. It seems for every educated creationist familiar with science, there are about a million AFDaves and FtKs. Since we haven't yet managed to recruit such an educated creationist, perhaps we should make do by discussing the best of the bunch, Telic Thoughts. It's slightly better than the others. If Uncommonly Dense is like a clown car, Telic Thoughts is more like an AMC Pacer.

Uncommon Descent has been off-line a lot, and when they do blog, it's mostly non-science topics. AtBC has a very robust peanut gallery for these non-science topics, so I've been commenting over at Telic Thoughts. (By the way, MikeGene has a rabbit theme.)

Wonders for Oyarsa thought that for evolution to find a specific beneficial mutation, junk portions of the genome would become scrambled. In fact, evolution can try all sorts of mutations and then discard them before fixation. This was pointed out in the very first comment. But of course, it had no impact on the discussion whatsoever.

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Raevmo: Kimura showed mathematically that for a neutral mutation the fixation rate is identical to the mutation rate (independently of population size).

Amusingly, Wonders for Oyarsa overlooked genetic fixation occurring right before his eyes.

Fluffy Bunnies has a very small genome, so only about 30% of the original junk typically remains. But even that significant portion should have been a clue that his intuition was wrong. I suggested that Wonders for Oyarsa approach his intuition skeptically, to make an attempt at falsification— to no avail.

When MikeGene and I get into heated discussions it is usually over what I call "Shield Bashing".

A lot of people at Telic Thoughts (including MikeGene) take the tactical position of claiming to be oppressed. It makes it easier to complain.

Bradford takes it to an extreme. He appears to be fairly knowledgeable but often uses that knowledge to be bombastic.

BTW, I don't know if you are aware of this. I think MikeGene split off from the "ID community" to form Telic Thoughts because of fundamental disagreements with people running ARN.

Personally, I think there was a spark of earnest interest in doing science when Darwin's Black Box came out. I agree with Dawkins' review that DBB was better, in this regard, than Edge of Evolution.

I suggest the ID MOVEMENT decided to go the PR route. Behe changed his definition of IC and the one ID Hypothesis that came close to being scientific, EAM, was abandoned.

In short, I think you are pressing some hot buttons with MikeGene. Yes, he is biased in blaming the “ID critics” for shutting down explorations but note the title bar declaration “Thoughts is an independent blog about intelligent design. Telic Thoughts is an independent blog about intelligent design.”

The word “independent” is obviously intentional. If there is an “ID Community”, MikeGene and Telic Thoughts don’t consider themselves part of it.

Thanks for the info. I don't know anything about the history there. I wrote a post on Telic Thoughts but deleted it. If someone's complaining that ID, with its millions of dollars and hundreds of supposed scientists, can't succeed because the community isn't large enough, well, I'm not sure I can talk to a person like that.

Yes, he is biased in blaming the “ID critics” for shutting down explorations but note the title bar declaration “Thoughts is an independent blog about intelligent design. Telic Thoughts is an independent blog about intelligent design.”

Yes, they are considerably incorrect there. ID killed itself by being a dead lifeless duck scientifically and producing no testable hypotheses or data. When I challenged Mike Gene in the past to demonstrate an actual testable hypothesis for ID, the usual retreat to "What would evolution do" came up, completely dodging what I was actually asking.

But in general, Telic Thoughts is a veritable fertile field of actual positive thinking about ID compared to cesspools of stupidity like UD. It's completely unfair to compare TT to UD, as TT has intelligent discussions on their site, doesn't suppress comments from those who disagree with them and actually have credibility (see the Dr. Pianka incident from a while ago).

Stevestory.

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Mike Gene seems to be denying that there is an ID community. So maybe I was too optimistic and they're a bunch of idiots too.

Although I still think TT talks a whole load of nonsense (like about Front Loading, I've still never seen them actually put down a proper testable prediction of this), they are far from idiots and if we take UD as being the "ID community", then I would not blame the group at TT from wanting to have no association with it.

She is very knowledgable and provides substantial, thought-provoking challenges.

TP,

Someone who believes that life depends on superconduction, and that there is a conspiracy to suppress information about superconductivity, is neither knowledgeable nor sane.

Joy on superconductivity in biology:

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Such an act of total measurement - the 'snapshot' - would collapse all sustained quantum states in the person being copied - including condensed matter/gel states, superconduction and molecular electron sharing, superpositions, etc. - thereby rendering that person DEAD. Mere decomposing raw matter in 4D.

Joy on the conspiracy:

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keith, way back at the turn of the last century when I was in the very middle of all this - seeking everything science knew about consciousness - superconductivity was discussed quite openly and in depth. Something happened that relegated that particular finding to the deep hole of "if I tell you that I'll have to kill you" and it's disappeared from accessible databases, including Tuszynski's. How the hell some al Queda wannabe could turn it into a weapon is beyond me (that might give the label "biological WMD" a whole new angle!), but a lot of things changed back around that time. I know how that works, so who am I to complain?

And that's just one example.

--------------And the set of natural numbers is also the set that starts at 0 and goes to the largest number. -- Joe G

She is very knowledgable and provides substantial, thought-provoking challenges.

TP,

Someone who believes that life depends on superconduction, and that there is a conspiracy to suppress information about superconductivity, is neither knowledgeable nor sane.

Joy on superconductivity in biology:

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Such an act of total measurement - the 'snapshot' - would collapse all sustained quantum states in the person being copied - including condensed matter/gel states, superconduction and molecular electron sharing, superpositions, etc. - thereby rendering that person DEAD. Mere decomposing raw matter in 4D.

Joy on the conspiracy:

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keith, way back at the turn of the last century when I was in the very middle of all this - seeking everything science knew about consciousness - superconductivity was discussed quite openly and in depth. Something happened that relegated that particular finding to the deep hole of "if I tell you that I'll have to kill you" and it's disappeared from accessible databases, including Tuszynski's. How the hell some al Queda wannabe could turn it into a weapon is beyond me (that might give the label "biological WMD" a whole new angle!, but a lot of things changed back around that time. I know how that works, so who am I to complain?

And that's just one example.

Well, nobody's perfect, Keith.

I recall Joy posting some interesting stuff about sustainability, (couldn't find it just now, sorry) so she ain't all bad.

keith, way back at the turn of the last century when I was in the very middle of all this - seeking everything science knew about consciousness - superconductivity was discussed quite openly and in depth. Something happened that relegated that particular finding to the deep hole of "if I tell you that I'll have to kill you" and it's disappeared from accessible databases, including Tuszynski's. How the hell some al Queda wannabe could turn it into a weapon is beyond me (that might give the label "biological WMD" a whole new angle!), but a lot of things changed back around that time. I know how that works, so who am I to complain?

Someone who believes that life depends on superconduction, and that there is a conspiracy to suppress information about superconductivity, is neither knowledgeable nor sane.

Joy is quite capable to defending herself. MikeGene's rabbit threads are available to open discussions. If someone wants to ask her something, there is a recent rabbit thread available that anyone can use. Meanwhile, I thank you for the opportunity for me to point out the use of quantum mechanics in life.

This is from Berkley Lab's Research News. The article is titled Quantum Secrets of Photosynthesis Revealed.

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BERKELEY, CA —Through photosynthesis, green plants and cyanobacteria are able to transfer sunlight energy to molecular reaction centers for conversion into chemical energy with nearly 100-percent efficiency. Speed is the key – the transfer of the solar energy takes place almost instantaneously so little energy is wasted as heat. How photosynthesis achieves this near instantaneous energy transfer is a long-standing mystery that may have finally been solved....Electronic spectroscopy measurements made on a femtosecond (millionths of a billionth of a second) time-scale showed these oscillations meeting and interfering constructively, forming wavelike motions of energy (superposition states) that can explore all potential energy pathways simultaneously and reversibly, meaning they can retreat from wrong pathways with no penalty. This finding contradicts the classical description of the photosynthetic energy transfer process as one in which excitation energy hops from light-capturing pigment molecules to reaction center molecules step-by-step down the molecular energy ladder.

“The classical hopping description of the energy transfer process is both inadequate and inaccurate,” said Fleming. “It gives the wrong picture of how the process actually works, and misses a crucial aspect of the reason for the wonderful efficiency.”

And, of course, there is the Orch OR model of consciousness put forward by Sir Rodger Penrose and Dr. Hameroff....

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In this paper we propose that aspects of quantum theory (e.g. quantum coherence) and of a newly proposed physical phenomenon of quantum wave function "self-collapse"(objective reduction: OR -Penrose, 1994) are essential for consciousness, and occur in cytoskeletal microtubules and other structures within each of the brain's neurons. The particular characteristics of microtubules suitable for quantum effects include their crystal-like lattice structure, hollow inner core, organization of cell function and capacity for information processing. We envisage that conformational states of microtubule subunits (tubulins) are coupled to internal quantum events, and cooperatively interact (compute) with other tubulins. We further assume that macroscopic coherent superposition of quantum-coupled tubulin conformational states occurs throughout significant brain volumes and provides the global binding essential to consciousness.

I agree, Joy's expertise appears to be more in understanding physics as opposed to biology. And, yes, she does have an unusual philosophical outlook (which she admits to).

What she brings to the table is the thought that it may be time to quit treating the different scientific disciplines as separate. Biologists can't continue to ignore General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.

This concept is what drives Sir Rodger Penrose. Combining General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics results in some interesting conclusions. While many people don't like the implications, Penrose's OR quantum interpretation is testable and is being tested. So far, it has never been falsified. Penrose also provides verifiable equations, E=h/t may become the next E=mc^2. Penrose is making a specific proposal for the timing of quantum superposition collapse.

It is obvious that Penrose has convinced himself (and others) of the solidity of the basic OR quantum model long ago. Once he considered it a given, Penrose started to look in its implications. Its implications to the study of consciousness is potentially very profound. However, like Joy, Penrose wasn’t as strong in biology as physics. This resulted in Penrose teaming up with a scientist who has dedicated his professional life to the study of consciousness, Dr, Hameroff. The Orch OR model of consciousness was introduced about 10 years ago.

Joy claims to be a “professional fool”. Sometimes listening to fools allows you to think outside artificial barriers of thinking (“outside the box”).

I agree, Joy's expertise appears to be more in understanding physics as opposed to biology.

With the emphasis on "appears." Given her rank dishonesty about biological subjects, I suspect that she's just as dishonest and/or deluded about physics.

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What she brings to the table is the thought that it may be time to quit treating the different scientific disciplines as separate. Biologists can't continue to ignore General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.

Can you offer any evidence that would allow me to conclude that biologists do ignore these subjects? I certainly don't consider them separate.

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This concept is what drives Sir Rodger Penrose.

1) How would you know what drives him?2) If it doesn't drive him to test hypotheses, he's not very driven.

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Combining General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics results in some interesting conclusions.

Science is about testing hypotheses, not about generating interesting conclusions.

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While many people don't like the implications, Penrose's OR quantum interpretation is testable and is being tested.

Then point me to the data instead of his speculations.

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Its implications to the study of consciousness is potentially very profound.

Potentially, yes. Probably, not at all.

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Joy claims to be a “professional fool”. Sometimes listening to fools allows you to think outside artificial barriers of thinking (“outside the box”).

Several types of studies suggest cytoskeletal involvement in cognition.

What Penrose omits is the fact that the evidence supporting the involvement of the ACTIN cytoskeleton is an order of magnitude greater than the evidence supporting the involvement of the MICROTUBULE cytoskeleton.

This alone trashes Penrose's credibility in my eyes.

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For example long term potentiation (LTP) is a form of synaptic plasticity that serves as a model for learning and memory in mammalian hippocampal cortex. LTP requires MAP-2, a dendrite-specific, MT-crosslinking MAP which is dephosphorylated as a result of synaptic membrane receptor activation (e.g. Halpain and Greengard, 1990).

But what else does it require? Penrose doesn't say, and you aren't reading carefully enough to be skeptical.

This is trivial relative to the known roles of CaM kinase II, receptor phosphorylation, and receptor trafficking in LTP. Only the last of these (one of the things we study) is known to have any dependence on MTs, and the role of MTs and MAPs may still be constituitive.